Unbelievable new email from Isis. She just refuses to be professional or logical. Recall my entire article has been printed without permission and without any copyright notice, or even without including my name as author.
Richelle, honey thhis isn't a commercial site its a private site that actually costs me a lot of money every month to maintain. Its a hobby and a public service, nothing more, nothing less. Its also an English and Maltese website, not American, so if you're so smalll minded and petty as to attempt an international law suit against a non profit web site - YES non profit!!! Then as I said, go for it, because trust me, I've got nothing to lose here, but you must have money to burn if you want to go to such lengths over an article of what .... 2,000 words. I'm assuming you're still young - I'm not, I'm old as the hills and less inclined to be threatened or intimidated, lol trust me on that. I haven't said I won't remove your article, I've simply said that I will replace it with mine - which says the same thing, after I've retitled and edited it. There is NOTHING in your article that's original, other than your style of writing, the content and ideas are over ten years old. Its nicely written, but its nothing new. You didn't 'think' of the Crowley Grey connection and you certainly didn't discover it - neither did I!!. I'm assuming by our discussions that you're an amateur writer who wants to write for a living. - I write for pleasure, more fun, no pressure. If you want to be taken seriously, never ever ever pretend other peoples ideas are your own. The Crowley - Grey connection is old hat - interesting old hat, but old hat nontheless. Read my article - which I sent you the link for - and then read yours, the only difference is the style and mine is longer because it provides more detail. Mines also Copyleft because the essay is whats important - nothing else. Why you can't just be thankful for the exposure I don't know, as it is - and as I've said before I will be replacing your article with an updated version of mine. to be honest, I've had my use out of yours - if I need to replace it with something more substantial thats hardly going to be an issue. If you were smarter you'd be glad of the exposure and the link, but if you were smarter, your article would have been more original in the first place. All we try and do here is share ideas and information - if you look there's a 50,000 word e-book that people can download for FREE. That's what the people here do, they give and they share and expect nothing back. How you can get your knickers in such a knot over a tiny little article is quite beyond me, it was never going to make the cover of Time. So sure, if you want to make a fuss and spend a lot of money doing nothing more than highlighting your own cheap rewrite - go ahead, but thats not really the sort of image you want to cultivate for yourself on the internet if you do want a career in writing, so I suggest you have a rethink. ThothWeb is just my little corner of the internet, nothing more and nothing less - it's a hobby! So there you have it, be patient and by the end of the week I should have had time to update my article. If that's not good enough - go see your lawyer - personally though I'd have thought you'd have better things to do with the money
5 comments:
How nasty and irrational. She's missing the point. Why would you sue her? She's committed a crime. It's a criminal, not a civil matter, which ever part of the world you're in. That response is very arrogant and illogical. Thothweb itself is a total rip-off of the Book of Thoth, anyway.
You're right, Siana. Literally. I have learned some things about the proprietors of ThothWeb over the course of posting my grievances here. I'm actually not that familiar with either ThothWeb of Book of Thoth, and I was mixing them up, or melding them into one. I was dismayed that such a large and seemingly respectable site would have such practices, but it seems ThothWeb has a habit of unethical behaviour. Obviously, they will seriously hang themselves eventually, (or have already) and there readership is of little consequence anyway. Thanks for your comment, and for everyone else who has given advice and information via emails and commentary elsewhere.
Sorry--Siani, not siana.
Well, that's just annoying. How can she be giving you 'exposure' if she doesn't even properly acknowledge you as the author?
The Associated Content page for your piece that she links to clearly states that the rule of 'fair use' applies - and fair use certainly doesn't include cutting and pasting an entire article.
We do quite a bit of Cut-and-pasting of news stories at the Cabinet of Wonders, but we always credit the original source and remove stuff if we're asked to. (The other week we were asked to remove a photo of a two-faced cat by the cat's press agent, for example.)
I once had an article copied from my website and included on the UFO Evidence site. I wasn't too sure whether to be annoyed or flattered - they hadn't asked, but then my email address wasn't very prominently displayed, and they did provide a link back to my site.
However, I've since revised the article quite a few times, and its a bit annoying to have the original inferior version still knocking about. One of the problems with people copying your stuff like that is that you lose control over it.
I wonder how many other articles on the thoth site were taken without their authors permission?
Apparently Isis and ThothWeb have had all kinds of ethics and manners issues, and have quite the negative reputation in general. I have likewise found my uncredited article snippets around, sometimes on very popular sites, like mental floss. Everyone has always responded to requests for linkage and whatnot so kindly and professionally. That's why i was pretty floored at Isis' ridiculous response. That whole "let me put it to you like this, little one" attitude is so infuriating, but of course, that is the entire point.
Thanks for your comment.
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